Chinese devices in Asia + more news

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Why the iPhone Is Losing Out to Chinese Devices in Asia – WSJ  – Xiaomi has an edge in many markets because it can customize for each country while Apple creates the same products for everyone, said Jai Mani, Xiaomi’s product manager for India. – the rise of Chinese devices in Asia are picking up the kind of clients that Apple doesn’t want. More related content here.

In an Era of ‘Smart’ Things, Sometimes Dumb Stuff Is Better – The New York Times – nails the need for divergent design and use cases

How This Guy Lied His Way Into MSNBC, ABC News, The New York Times and More – old news, many PRs have been case studies in newspapers and magazine articles – Janet or Jim who worked in marketing and had a medical condition or an embarrassing thing happen to them – chances are they’re a PR

Secret HSBC memo turns heat on Topshop boss Philip Green | News | The Sunday Times – this makes a lot of sense, even more so than when Green started discussions two years ago. From a historic point of view HSBC helped KS Li and his counterparts buy out many of the then British owned conglomerates in colonial Hong Kong of the 1970s. It seems natural to have them help find Chinese buyers for his British interests. Hong Kong’s Hutchison owns mobile network (including shops) 3. It also owns Super Drug through its Watson’s subsidiary. House of Fraser also has a Chinese owner. Topshop trades on the UK being cool and trendy a la Rimmel’s iconic “Get the London look” – Brexit diminishes it with its xenophobic inward look. Domestic sales still outweigh overseas sales, I can understand why he wants out, especially if the business is leveraged

China’s cutthroat smartphone market is coming down to a handful of major brands | South China Morning Post  – Huawei Technologies, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and Apple – with a 77 per cent share of the market, up from 67 per cent in 2016, according to Counterpoint. – Quite why Oppo and Vivo aren’t viewed in aggregate rather like Huawei and Honor is beyond me due to their close ties to BBK

Instagram is killing the way we experience art | Quartz – fine art gets the kind of screen intermediation problem that live music has had for years

Dropbox saved almost $75 million over two years by building its own tech infrastructure – GeekWire – this makes total sense when you get that to that size and scale

Assembly of ‘Aibo’ Robot Dog (1) | NIKKEI XTECH – Nikkei have a unique take on the teardown; working with a Sony engineer to document the process of assembling the latest generation of Aibo robotic dog. It quickly comes across where your money goes as it is fiendishly complicated to build

Young Japanese are surprisingly content – Seventh heaven at 7-Eleven | Economist – but concerned about the future

From the Name to the Box Logo: The War Over Supreme — The Fashion Law

Why Chengdu Spends More on Luxury Than Wealthier Cities | Jing Daily